A Year-End Holiday Spending Forecast in July

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A Year-End Holiday Spending Forecast in July

By Mark Dolliver - 07/17/2009

There’s nothing like a holiday-spending forecast to help you ignore the hot, humid weather of mid-July. Worthington, Ohio-based BIGresearch offers such a distraction with a poll (fielded at the tag end of June and beginning of July) that asked consumers to predict what their holiday spending will look like this year.

While last year’s holiday spending was less than robust, coming as it did soon after autumn’s meltdown of the financial sector, respondents expect to be even more parsimonious this year. Sixty-nine percent said they'll be “spending less on everyone.”

Some will pare the number of people to whom they give gifts: 32 percent said they’ll buy for fewer relatives, and 31 percent for fewer friends. Given these numbers, it’s not surprising that 24 percent expect to be buying fewer gift cards this holiday season.

Consumers also anticipate making steps to get more mileage out of the money they do spend on holiday gifts. Forty-eight percent said they’ll buy items only when they’re on sale; 40 percent plan to do more comparison shopping; 26 percent will do more online research before making in-store purchases.

And recipients had better be prepared with their best “just what I always wanted” expressions, judging from the most alarming of the poll’s findings: 24 percent of respondents said they’ll save money by making homemade gifts. At least the recipients can’t clog up the stores in January by exchanging those.